Riohacha
19/10 Leave the pleasant village of Minca for the unpleasant city of Riohacha (river of the axe?!). Mission is to reach the northern most point of South America, Punta Gallinas, and Riohacha is a useful stopover (eg last place to get cash/laid etc). I had been to the furthest south back in March, and thought may as well go to the north, not having anything better to do. Though in short my advice is don't bother, unless you're into turtle conservation, or a glutten for punishment. That said it was an interesting experience, and the photos will make it look like I was having a great time, as usual.
I stay at strange fortress building sharing a dump of a room with a couple and an Austrian girl. The couple have already attempted the trip I'm about to make, and recount tales of robbery and failure (they didn't get too far the route is closed by land in rain season and there are hardly any boats going). Not deterred I persuade the Austrian to join me on the adventure (no, I was a good boy) and we set off the next morning.
Cabo de la Vela
20/10 Get cash, stock up on johnnies (you never know), grab a collectivo to Uribia (a dry dusty market town reminded me of Bolivia), then a 4x4 collectivo for the bumpy ride to Cabo de la Vela. Arrive late afternoon, check-in to a hammock, swim, then stroll the village looking for other tourists to form a group to share the cost of a boat hire. No luck here, village almost desserted, but we found some friendly parrots and chilled Venezuelan beer.
There are boat-owning local Wayuus offering the trip for the equivalent of 500 cold beers, return. However you do the maths, it makes no sense. They claim the petrol for the trip is expensive, but that makes no sense either - it's smuggled cheaply from Venezuela, and they use it to power the generators that keeps the beer cold, which they can then afford to sell for less than 50p. My conclusion was they just can't be bothered, why work when you can just sit?
Punta Gallinas
21/10 Slept quite well in a comfy Chinchorro (a meshy hammock), morning swim in the sea, followed by bucket&cup shower (no running water in the village). Gave in and phoned Francisco, a local tour operator, for help in getting to Punta Gallinas. We exchanged words like "call me back in 15 minutes and I'll pass you the name of the fisherman". So we had luck, a local was about to head out with a consignment of ice (for the fish i guess, or maybe to keep their beer cold, I didn't ask too many questions). The cost was 50 peso each, each way, so 200 total. We leg it down to a secluded bay, and wait.
The boat ride is fast, about an hour or so, and we make it to Punta Gallinas for late afternoon, so time enough to check out the place. It's a dump. It faces two coastlines, to the south a lagoon, and the north the open caribean sea. The beaches on both sides are hardly pleasant, but the place has it's redeeming features, such as comfy chinchorro hammocks, cold beer, and fresh lobster.
Dunas
22/10 Slept again fairly well in a chinchorro hammock. Coffee, eggs, arepes (fried cornfloor pancakes). A 10 year old guides us on a bike ride to the sand dunes, a nice enough idea but i make a mental note that there maybe a market for camels in this region. The ride is bumpy and sometimes through thick grassland (it's rain season), and having seen a snake the previous day, and having no brakes on my bike, i'm wary that some bumps might bite back. Several hours from the nearest clinic, I try to focus on the scenery ahead, herds of goats and the like.
Two hours later, sweating the last of our water away, we plunge into the clear blue caribean waters.
Back to base, a shower (well a drip or two), and back into the hammock. I'm happy here with a good book to pass the time (The Da Vinci Code)
Meanwhile someone is doing some work. A biologist, Wilder, is measuring up some baby turtles. What are they protecting them from I ask, imagining the answer to be some local birds or wildlife. Answer, the locals.. who eat the turtle eggs, wolfing down a nest of 200 or so in a day or two. Life is tough out in the dessert, and they have big families to feed. Fortunately for the turtles, a coal mining company now pays them off instead, indirectly, via a protection scheme, in which they help out by looking after the turtle nests and then releasing the baby turtles into the sea. It's a new project, no volunteers yet, if you are interested in being stuck in the dessert i can pass you an email address.
Return trip
23/10 A gift from God this morning. The locals have run out of decent drinking water, but the clouds become heavy and the rain follows. I fill up all my water bottles, which is handy as the boat is returning today, and it will be a long trip back through the dessert. The boat ride is a smoothe, and we avoid the free-divers who pop up occasionally from picking up lobster pots.
Back at the secluded bay there's no-one going anywhere in a hurry so we decide to start walking and try our luck at hitching. There's not a lot of trafic, an hour passes then a local appears and drops us at the next junction, which isn't that much busier, but it's shady and we've got all day, and hitching with a girl has it's advantages. She stops a miltary convoy, and the friendly gun-toting soldiers let us on. They turn out to be one of the anti-narcotics attack squads, sent out on clean-up missions wherever intelligence service direct them. Unlike the local fishermen, a typical catch for them is 5 tons, thats a lot of charlie.
Our luck runs out in Riohacha though, the bus we choose to take to Santa Marta breaks down and by nightfall no luck in fixing it. The company, "Rapido Ochoa", fails to live up to its rapido name and sends no support. We are stuck on the highway sleeping on the bus until the morning one passes by to collect us. A 3 hour ride becomes 15 hours!
But eventually I get back to Divanga Hotel in Taganga, a wonderful refuge where i sleep the day away by the pool.
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